Patch 3.2: Mount Changes

UPDATE
They are also making changes to class forms and class quest that increase movement speeds.

Druid Forms

New Level

Travel Form

16

Flight Form*

60

Swift Flight Form

70

*Flight Form has also received the speed increase to 150% instead of 60%.

Hunter Aspects

New Level

Cheetah

16

No other changes noted as of yet.

Shaman Forms

New Level

Ghost Wolf

16

No other changes noted as of yet.

Paladin Mounts

New Level

Warhorse

20

Charger

40

No mention yet of what changes may occur to the quest itself. Will they do away with it? Will they leave it there simply for the achievement? Will they replace the reward with something else? Who knows.

Warlock Mounts

New Level

Felsteed

20

Dreadsteed

40

No mention yet of what changes may occur to the quest itself. Will they do away with it? Will they leave it there simply for the achievement? Will they replace the reward with something else? Who knows.

End Update

The most frequent complaint I see when talking to old players about rolling new characters, is that they don’t want to go back to having to run everywhere on foot. Everyone loves their epic mounts, and being forced to run again just kills them. Well, apparently level 30 wasn’t enough for those people and Blizzard decided to do something about it.

My thanks to yet another Twitter friend, @Arrens for pointing this information out to me.

In Patch 3.2 you will now be able to purchase your first mount at level 20 instead of level 30. That’s right, you heard me – Riding Skill (60% speed) is now going to be trainable at level 20! The skill is now only going to cost a whopping 4g, plus an extra 1g for the mount itself. So for the low, low cost of just 5 shiny gold coins you too can run around the world at 60% run speed!

Changes have been made to everything except Epic Flying and Cold Weather Flying:

Mount Type

New Lv Req

New Price

Regular Ground Mount

20

Training: 4g, Mount: 1g

Epic Ground Mount

40

Training: 50g, Mount: 10g

Regular Flying Mount

60

Training: 600g*, Mount: 50g

Epic Flying Mount

70

Training: 5,000g*, Mount: 100g

Cold Weather Flying

77

Training: 1,000g

* Faction Discounts now apply to reduce the cost of Flight Training for both Regular and Epic flying mounts.

Update:
I also found, shortly after posting this, that the casting time to summon your mounts has also been cut in half! Summoning your mount will take 1.5 seconds instead of 3 seconds as it does now.

Special Notes: Regular Flying Mounts
Speed is now increased to 150% instead of 60%. So you can now fly around in Outlands at a reasonable speed instead! The mount’s speed on land will be 60%, but the flying speed has been increased significantly.

Also, you will now be able to train your Regular Flying skill Thrallmar/Honor Hold instead of having to take the trip over to Shadowmoon Valley.

And your reputation with Thrallmar/Honor Hold will now provide their faction discounts on your regular flying mount training. You will also receive faction discounts on training your Epic Flying as well.

Let the QQ Begin!
I know when they reduced the first mounts down to level 30 just from level 40 that there was just a ton of drama flying all around about how much work people had to put in to get their mounts, and how they had to walk everywhere they went, and so on and so forth.

I expect very much the same thing going on now, not just because the mounts have been reduced even further, but mainly because of the flying mounts dropping down to level 60.

With as much crying as there was just from the riding mount dropping by 10 levels, I’m sure people are going to go half-insane with flying mounts doing the same. The most ridiculous part of this QQ is the fact that the ones with the tears rolling down their faces are going to be the ones that have already been sitting at level 80 for 6 months, who will not be impacted by this in the least.

If you’re bothered by the change, then ask yourself this: “Does that someone else having a mount at level 20 impact my gameplay at all?” And the correct answer to that question is “No, it doesn’t.”

Those who QQ about this topic will receive no sympathy from me.

Let the Fun Begin!
Since I’m the kind of guy who plays this game for fun, and the majority of my fun comes from leveling characters, I absolutely love this change. It does potentially kind of suck for Shamans and Druids who already get fast moving forms (+40% speed) at level 20, but a lot of people use those forms instead of spending money on the mounts anyway.

The articles that I have linked down at the bottom point out that the whole point of this change is to make leveling a bit easier and less stressful by providing more tools for you to use while you’re leveling. The experience in Outlands is going to speed up because you have a faster flying mount that you can get almost right away instead of waiting until you’re already prepared to move on into Northrend.

I think this is a wonderful change and I fully support it. I see no reason to bother crying or complaining about it as everyone who would have any reason to do so is already above and beyond where it would have any impact on them to begin with.

Bravo, Blizzard! Bravo!

Giving Credit Where It’s Due
You can find the article I found my information on Here.

It’s great news IMO! Cheaper mounts and faster travel. Personally I find travel a real pain in the original WoW zones. Now if only they would increase the griffon flight time! I hate getting onto a bird and seeing 9:50 mins flash up :(

Yeah, the flight paths still take forever. I kind of like that they are there to make you appreciate the other forms of travel a bit more, and at the same time it does provide a way for you to travel where you can just click the button and then go take a break to grab some food, take a bio, or whatever else you might need to do away from the game.

It’s the only form of “AFK travel” we have that we don’t have to worry about getting dropped off in the middle of nowhere or jumping back and forth between zones repeatedly. I think they fixed getting dropped off in the middle of the ocean if you DC during a boat ride and such, but you could still end up coming back to find yourself right where you were when you left.

I certainly wouldn’t mind the time being faster, but at the same time I do appreciate the opportunity that they present.

As for your pondering as to whether the class quests will change, then I can’t see how they would be able to stay the same. For example, the Paladin charger requires going to Scholomance and killing one of the bosses there. At 40 that would be pretty much impossible (unless getting boosted of course).

I’m not so fussed about the cast time change. Since you can’t mount in combat then (imo) a faster cast is more-or-less irrelevant as 3 seconds isn’t exactly a long time to wait!

Good news all around since last I checked. I need to have another look today and see if anything else has come out over the weekend.

My main thought right now as far as the quests go is whether they would change the quests themselves since you would then be doing a quest that costs almost 300g for a reward you received 20 levels earlier, or if they are going to keep the quest but change the reward that was offered. For instance, rather than getting your mount for the quest, they give you a different spell, item, etc. Perhaps they give you Crusader Aura at that level or something.

I haven’t come up with anything that *really* sounds like it would fit right in just yet, but I don’t think many people are going to bother with that quest if it stays the same.

If they change it to a different quest all together, with the same idea and reward behind it, I could handle that. I would rather not see the current quest go away with nothing to replace it, but I don’t think the current reward fits in any longer with the changes they are going to make.

I’m not sure on the 3 sec cast for flying mounts. Last I read it was across the board.

I don’t mind them being 1 second casts, but the instant cast is one of the things that still keeps druids unique and makes their epic flight form useful. The only way to out-farm a druid in Outlands/Northrend is to have the 310% flying mount. If everyone was insta-mounting then druids would have no reason to put the time, effort, and resources into getting their epic flight form over a regular flying mount or going for the 310% flier instead.